Speaking to supporters in his hometown of South Bend, Indiana, Mr Buttigieg stressed the values he said his campaign had hoped to promote.

“And so we must recognise that at this point in the race, the best way to keep faith with those goals and ideals is to step aside and help bring our party and our nation together,” he said. “So tonight I am making the difficult decision to suspend my campaign for the presidency.”

He pledged he would do “everything in my power” to ensure a Democratic win in November’s election.

Mr Buttigieg surprisingly, and narrowly, won the first event of the primary season, the caucuses in Iowa on 3 February. But he failed to repeat that success and win the delegates needed to make him the front- runner and later confirm his nomination. He finished a distant fourth in South Carolina on Saturday.

Mr Biden praised Mr Buttigieg’s campaigning effort in a tweet.

Mr Buttigieg’s husband, Chasten, also addressed crowds of supporters in South Bend, saying: “About a year and a half ago, my husband came home from work and told me – well he asked me: ‘What do you think about running for president?’ And I laughed! Not at him, but at life.

“Life gave me some interesting experiences, on my way to find Pete. After falling in love with Pete, Pete got me to believe in myself… and I told Pete to run [for office] because I knew there were other kids sitting out there in this country who needed to believe in themselves, too.”

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About Kingdom FM

From an ever growing family church (Christianity Focus Center) to a vibrant city lunch hour fellowship that impacts hundreds in morning glory, lunch hour meetings and evening prayers, to men and women’s meetings. Business men’s conventions, youth and children’s conferences, crusades, an orphanage (focus grammar school) then comes 93.0 Kingdom FM with an aver growing listening that now is at 6 million people.

The list goes on and on not forgetting the great Television Ministry and various international missions.

The ministry is simply larger and with needs than can be met by a few people.

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